LEARNING ABOUT
JIM MURPHY

Compiled by Kay
Vandergrift

"Children weren't just observers
of our history. They were actual participants and sometimes did amazing and
heroic things." Jim Murphy

BIOGRAPHY

"I grew up in Kearny, New Jersey,
a smallish industrial town on the Passaic River. My childhood consisted of thousands
of baseball and football games with neighborhood kids, roaming around town,
and inventing various "adventures." We might be explorers tramping through a
river jungle or soldiers checking for the enemy in an abandoned factory. On
several occasions my friends and I hopped aboard a train and went to New York
City. We never worried about being bothered by anyone on such outings since
we always traveled in groups of twenty or thirty."

"I didn't read very much until I
was twelve. Once I started to read, it became a passion. I would and still do
read just about anything I can get my hands on-historical fiction, poetry, mysteries,
books about medicine or the Revolutionary War or ancient Egypt or . . . well,
you get the picture. If I become interested in a subject, I will read book after
book about it. And every so often, all of this reading gets my gray matter really
energized and results in my writing a book. For instance, one day I was reading
various theories concerning the extinction of dinosaurs. One common thread in
these theories is that dinosaurs did not fall over dead in a minute or two.
It took hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, for them all to die out.
A week or so after reading this, I realized this meant that at some point there
was only one dinosaur alive on earth. Which one could it have been? I wondered.
Did it feel lonely? After seven years of additional reading, plus talking with
paleontologists, I wrote The Last Dinosaur."

"Something similar happened with
The Great Fire. I was doing research on another book when I came across
a letter written by twelve-year-old Claire Innis. Her letter was about the fire
that destroyed much of Chicago in 1881. Not only did Claire see the fire, she
had actually been trapped in an alley with burning buildings all around her.
What a brave kid, I thought, and what an amazing adventure she had. I had no
plans to write a book about the Chicago fire then, but I liked Claire's letter
enough to copy it down."

"A number of years later, I was in
an antique book shop in Vermont when I came across Chicago and the Great Conflagration,
which was published just a month after the fire. I glanced through it and noticed
it contained several firsthand accounts from survivors of the same fire Claire
had written about. One of them was a young newspaper reporter named Joseph Chamberlin
who, like Claire, had actually been pursued and surrounded by the flames. That's
when I began to think I might be able to do a book about the fire."

"But I didn't want it to be just
another history of the fire, loaded with dry statistics and information. I wanted
readers to experience what it was like to see the fire approaching, hear its
terrible roar, and feel the intense heat. So I began searching for other people
who had barely escaped the consuming fire and left a written account of it.
I also decided to make the fire one of the characters-a hungry monster in a
relentless quest for buildings and people."

"One of my goals in writing about
events from the past is to show that children weren't just observers of our
history. They were actual participants and sometimes did amazing and heroic
things. It's why I wrote my two Civil War books, The Boys' War: Confederate
& Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War and The Long Road to Gettysburg,
and why I did A Young Patriot: The American Revolution as Experienced by
One Boy. And it's why I am so happy that I stumbled across Claire Innis's
letter about the Chicago fire. She and the other survivors of the fire are the
real historians-telling us what happened to them and their families in voices
that are as immediate and powerful today as when these events took place."

Taken from the Scholastic author
brochure with permission of the author.

The following is taken from a personal
letter to me dated November 27, 1996

"I was a very bad student in grammar
school (in part because I had an eye condition that went undetected until
I was 9 or 10 and because I was in constant warfare with the nuns, who were
always asking me why I wasn't as smart as my brother)."

"I began to read fiendishly after
my father taught me to refinish furniture. Huh!? You're saying. Well, the
first piece of furniture I refinished was a maple bookcase. I put it in my
room and realized that as nice as it looked, it needed some books to look
really finished. So I rounded up a few and stuck them in the bookcase. It
all looked very nice and it sat, untouched, for a few weeks. Then, I picked
out one of the books and started reading it. When I finished it, I picked
out another, and another and so on. So I went out and bought a book with my
own money and I was off on a reading binge that hasn't stopped. Both my parents
encouraged my reading, though my mother especially. When the nuns, and later
some of my prep. School teachers said that what I was reading was too adult,
she made it clear to them that I could read anything I wanted."

"My interest in history began in
7th Grade when we had Mr. Polino as a teacher. On the very first day of class
he stood in front of us and announced, "Despite what you've seen on television
or been told, all American Indians weren't bad people." This was back in 1957
or 58, so this came as a bit of a surprise to us, and resulted in a two day
discussion on how Native Americans were represented in history books, movies
and on TV, and how we had accepted this as the truth without question. Mr.
P. used a similar approach with a variety of other history topics and really
started us thinking. I came away from all of this feeling that if I wanted
to have a real idea of what took place in the past, I had to read a lot more
than one book about a subject."

"In prep. School (St. Benedict's
in Newark) and in college (Rutgers, New Brunswick) I managed to lead a strange
double life. I liked some subjects (history, English, geology, art history,
biology, city planning, for instance), but hated others (any language, calculus
to name a few) and my grades generally reflected my interest. I also ran track
(60, 100, 220 and quarter mile, plus the long jump) and was pretty good at
it. I was state champion in the sprints five or six times and was on the national
champion 440 and mile relay teams. I even made it to the finals of the high
school national 60 yard dash and came in third (the winner was a guy named
Jim Gaines, who happens to still hold the world record in the dash, so I didn't
feel all that bad about my performance). But all of my running was done under
the name Tim Murphy. You see, my nickname when I entered prep. School was
Tiny (because I weighed under six pounds when I was born), but the coach said
he didn't want me referred to by that name, so he said, "From now on you're
Tim." "Sure," I said, and I was Tim thereafter, even when I made it into the
New York Times. Why he didn't pick Jim or JJ (for James John) escapes me.
I actually liked the name Tim and used it on and off for years (my brother
still refers to me as Tim from time to time)."

"After college, I worked on a variety
of construction jobs in New York city and New Jersey. I was a tin knocker
and we laid the corrugated metal on the open steel beams; when we were finished,
concrete was poured over the metal to create the floors. I really enjoyed
this work, despite the bitter cold winds you encounter at 30 and 40 stories,
but I was also looking for a job in publishing, specifically in children's
books. One reason I wanted to get into children's books was that I love illustrations
and illustrated books. After many interviews (in the area of 30 to 40), I
finally landed a position at the Seabury Press (which is now called Clarion
Books). I was a secretarial-assistant and responsible for typing letters,
filing and checking mailing lists. But because this was a very tiny list when
I started (we were doing 5 to 7 books a season), I was able to do a wide variety
of jobs-from line-editing, to rewriting text, to revising ad copy, playing
with catalog design, etc. My boss, Jim Giblin, not only tolerated my dreadful
typing, but he let me see sales figures, meet important illustrators and authors,
interview new illustrators and participate (in a way) in the overall decision
making process. Naturally, the pay was dreadful (I took home $92.50 a week
when I started; my last paycheck as a construction worker was in the area
of $900), but the experience was priceless. What's more, I learned how to
read and evaluate a manuscript with an editor's and publisher's eye. I try
to use these same standards when I write and revise my own manuscripts."

"After working at Clarion for between
seven and eight years, I became a freelance writer. Why? Well, I'd helped
a number of writers come up with ideas, helped them focus their texts and
in some cases even rewritten them. So why not try to do it for myself, I thought.
Also, I had some ideas for books that I couldn't get anyone else to do. Finally,
I decided I didn't want to wake up some morning and discover that I was 65
and annoyed at myself because I hadn't taken the chance. That was 19 years
ago and I'm still wondering if I'll make it as a writer!"

"Let's see, what else can I say?
Hmmm. Hobbies: I love to cook (cajun/creole, Indian, some French, Chinese,
pizzas, and any recipe that sounds interesting). I collect turn-of-the-century
postcards of ships (all steam driven) and trains (though there has to be an
engine somewhere in the picture); reading (of course) though I'm particularly
fond of finding firsthand accounts from the 19th century; gardening; and searching
for the perfect hamburger and french fries (no kidding). I'm married to a
wonderful and very supportive person, Alison Blank (she was the executive
producer of The Magic School Bus animated series, and she created and
edits/writes the MSG magazine, plus creating and writing websites for New
Jersey Online). I'm very proud of her creativity and accomplishments. We have
two sons (Michael, who insists we call him Mike, is 5 3/4 and Ben, who is
two days shy of being 1 year old). We live in an old Victorian with a wrap-around
porch and Alison and I both work out of third floor offices. So far we have
had no real problems with this arrangement, but I do think she takes too many
pens and rubber bands out of my office! I am a confessed horrible speller
and punctuator and have had many interesting discussions with copyeditors
over my creative approach to both skills. Phobias: I am not at all fond of
spiders or snakes, though I've learned to be a little more tolerant because
I like to work in the garden. The emphasis is on the phrase "a little more"
since I will never befriend a member from either group."

"That's all I can think to write,
except that I never work on St. Patrick's Day. Anyway, I better get this off
to you before you call me and yell. If you need any other information, don't
hesitate to ask. Meanwhile, I hope this info is of some help."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Young Patriot.
New York: Clarion Books, 1996.

The Great Fire. New York:
Scholastic, 1995.

Into the Deep Forest. Illus.
by Kate Keisler. New York: Clarion Books, 1995.

Night Terrors. New York:
Scholastic, 1994.

Across America on an Emigrant
Train. New York: Clarion Books, 1993.

Backyard Bear. Illus. by
Jeffery Greene. New York: Scholastic, 1993.

Dinosaur for a Day. Illus.
by Mark Alan Weatherby. New York: Scholastic,1992.